When Winter, in her flirtatious ways,
In part to tease, part to amaze,
Showers down her powd’ry air
Upon the Lantskip, cold and bare,
I sit amidst my books and things
And ponder idly what Winter brings:
Ice and cold and snow and chill,
Titmice on the windowsill;
Steel blue skies with ravens black,
Icy dams that groan and crack;
And in the night, while half asleep,
The snowplow rumbling down our street.
The air grows cold, the house now still;
The furnace coughs —
Then burns to break the chill.
“These pleasures Melancholy give,
And I with thee will choose to live.”
1/9/2017
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Hi!
Diverting! (I’ve never had a titmouse on my windowsill. ) But what’s’ a “Lantskip?” I suppose one can grant that it’s Yiddish for “landscape,” but why Yiddish in a poem about Milton?
Also, beware of half-asleep snowplows! They can run amuck, or even amok.
Blessings,
Dave
>
As recorded in the tome I’ve got, Milton’s poetry is rife with odd spellings. In his poem “L’Allegro,” Lantskip is undoubtedly Landscape from the context.
The meter and couplet rhyme of my poem are Milton’s as well.
As for half-asleep snowplows, I can only plead poetic license.
The final couplet is taken directly from “Il Penseroso,” hence the quotation marks.